Thursday, February 20, 2014

Coffee Cake

When a Coffee Cake is coffee in a cake...

Connecticut Coffee Cake1866

Two eggs, two cups of sugar, one cup of coffee (liquid), three fourths
cup of butter, three cups of flour, one tea-spoonful each of cloves, cinnamon,
and nutmeg, one tea-spoonful of cream oftartar, and one half tea-spoonful of soda.

"I was left alone to watch camp. I longed to experiment further in the
cooking line, and discovering a bag of ground coffee leaning against the foot
of a tree, I said to myself, "coffee cake." I had heard of it, I had
eaten it, I would again surprise the boys. I had no eggs, no butter, no milk
(condensed milk was unknown at that time), but I had flour, water, cream of
tartar, saleratus, sugar, salt, and ground coffee. I thought these quite
enough, and went at my task. The mixture I made I put in a small tin and baked
in the Dutch oven.

I was so much occupied with this interesting experiment that
I forgot all about time and about having something substantial ready for the
return of the hungry climbers, so when they did come about noon, as famished as
coyotes and dead tired, all I could offer was the cake, ever after famous on
that trip, a brown, sugary solid, some six inches in diameter, two inches
thick, and betraying its flavour everywhere by the coffee-grounds scattered
lavishly through it. Andy gave it one brief sad look, and then went to work to
get dinner. But they were such a rare lot of good fellows that they actually
praised that cake and not only that, they ate it."

Dellenbaugh, Frederick.A Canyon
Voyage: The Narrative of the Second Powell Expedition down the Green-Colorado
River from Wyoming, and the Explorations on Land, in the Years 1871 and
1872.New York: 1908